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How my twins forever changed my world view

One rainy day in 2012, in an operating room at Sunnybrook hospital, my life changed forever when a slim, eccentric obstetrician made an incision in my wife’s lower abdomen and pulled out our daughter, and then our son.

At the age of 46 I was suddenly a father, times two, whether I was ready or not.

But I was ready — just not always prepared.

That was 22 months ago and events in the news and in my life have me thinking a lot about fatherhood.

It would have been a huge financial benefit to us for OHIP to have covered the costs, but then we would not have had our twins. The province will fund one round of IVF with one embryo transfer. In our case, Natasha was almost 40. At the last minute our doctor suggested transferring three embryos. The chance of triplets was less than one per cent. The chance of twins was only 14 per cent. The chance of one live birth in our case was about 35 per cent. We were very lucky.

Ontario has so many pressing health care needs, funding IVF is not the best use of our tax dollars. I’d rather see improvements in caring for the elderly, for example. We need to care for the people who are already here.

Preparing for the worst

Jean-Paul Bedard, a friend from my past contacted me in February about his plan to run the Boston Marathon twice on the same day — once from the finish line to the starting line before the official race began and then from the start to the finish with all the runners. The purpose of the “double Boston” feat was to raise money for and honour survivors of childhood sexual abuse, something he unfortunately endured. Bedard amazingly ran both marathons in 4 hours, nine minutes and raised $15,855 for The Gatehouse, an Etobicoke treatment centre.

He is also a father, so I asked him how he raised his son knowing from experience the evil that lurks in our society.

He said he didn’t realize it at the time, but his abuse was behind his decision to stay home with his son and not put him in daycare, even though his wife worked as a daycare advocate.

“I didn’t want to leave him out of our sight. I felt really passionately about it back then but it was only until fairly recently that I’ve been able to make that connection.”

“I had no road map for it (parenting) and the only sense I have been able to make of it is in retrospect.”

Bedard and his wife were hypervigilant about teachers, coaches, and sleepovers as his son got older.

Bedard delivered a blunt message: There is no a guarantee your children will always be safe.

“You can’t protect your kid. That is the scary thing about this whole thing. Statistically, it’s the person you feel the safest leaving your child with who is going to be a potential abuser. It’s rarely a stranger.”

That was not the advice I was hoping for. We all know that sometimes bad things happen to good people. But ultimately, my friend’s message is one of hope; that the human spirit can triumph over any adversity. That is a message I will teach my children.

Where I belong

Luckily for me, there have only been a few days since our children were born that I have not been able to see them. I knew I’d love our kids, but I didn’t how much I’d want to be with them. They are my two favourite people. They have noticeably different personalities, but what they have in common is a good spirit. They know they are loved and I’m convinced they will turn out to be people I’m proud to say are my children.

When I’m home on Friday or Saturday night with my kids, sometimes alone with them if Natasha is working, many of my friends and colleagues are out at movies, or at a trendy new restaurant.

I don’t envy them, at least I rarely do. When my kids are fighting for space on my lap, trying to get the best spot to read a book there is no other place I’d rather be.

This is the final Late in the Game column. I’m taking the time to pursue other projects, including writing a parenting and mentoring book with NHL hockey dad, Karl Subban. A sincere thank you to everyone who read Late in the Game over the past two years. Email: scolby@thestar.ca and @the_scolby on Twitter.

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